


We've got trouble right here in River City High

by bluesargayent



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, but its okay bc theyre young, kai is stuco pres, somehow cinder is friends with both of them, thorne is a band kid, thorne is also a little bit of an idiot, tlcshipweeks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:26:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesargayent/pseuds/bluesargayent
Summary: Thorne needs to reserve a practice room for band rehearsal tonight, but unfortunately Kai has already reserved the room he wants for a student council planning committee





	We've got trouble right here in River City High

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for tlcshipweeks 2018 for the free week prompt of "band"!

Crap. Thorne paused from throwing a tennis ball against the wall with realization, allowing the green object to smack into his shoulder. Absentmindedly, he rubbed the spot where it hit, but he was too distracted to really care.

It was Thursday, which meant tomorrow was Friday, which meant today was the practice band concert in anticipation for tomorrow’s actual band concert. Which meant that the band needed a room to practice in tonight.

Mentally, he went over excuses in his head.

_No, Mr. Erland, there wasn’t any room available; Oh, my friend accidently smacked me with his tuba and gave me short-term memory loss so I forgot to reserve a room; Didn’t they tell you the concert is cancelled?_

But none of these would work; Erland knew the only tuba player and Wolf would never smack anyone with his instrument.

Thorne looked over his shoulder at the other kids waiting for the bell to signal the start of class, but didn’t see the one he was looking for. Instead of heading over to his literature class after homeroom, he went the opposite direction towards the study hall classroom. Before he could enter the room, he snagged an oblivious fellow senior. The boy frowned, instinctively removing his hands from his hoodie, the only non-preppy part of his ensemble.

“Thorne?”

“Hey, Kai!”

“Don’t you have class now?”

“Well,” he paused, “Mr. Konn wanted me to grab you for him.”

“Oh, is something wrong?”

“Not really, he was just making sure the assembly room is still reserved for the band to practice tonight.”

“No, student council has had that room reserved for weeks for prom planning.”

“Oh.” Thorne frowned. “Then I guess we do have a problem.” The two stopped walking in the now empty hallway. 

“The MPR is open. The band could practice in there.”

“See, I thought that too, but unfortunately the MPR has terrible acoustics. It won't work.”

“You could use the gym.”

“Another great idea! But the gym is reserved as well.”

“I don't suppose you could practice outside.”

“Outside? In the snow? What sort of student council president are you that you would send your subjects straight into frostbite?”

“Thorne-” Kai looked at the lockers behind the other boy. “Did Konn really send you?”

“Well, not directly.”

Kai sighed and turned to walk away, only for Thorne to grab his wrist. “Wait!”

Kai raised an eyebrow. 

“I was supposed to reserve a room ages ago but my friend accidentally hit me in the head with a tuba and, due to the short-term memory loss resulting from that incident, I forgot to.”

Kai rolled his eyes and began walking away again. 

“I just forgot. I swear, I've never forgotten before and it'll never happen again. Could you help me out?”

“I don't know what you want me to do.”

“Move the stuco meeting?”

“We booked the assembly room. If you wanted it, you should have reserved it.”

Thorne let his hand slide down until he was holding Kai’s knuckles. He let his lips part for a moment before speaking. Kai watched carefully. “I'd really appreciate it if you'd help me out. I might be getting in trouble for this.”

After a moment, Kai copied Thorne’s batted eyelashes. “Maybe you should have thought of that last week.” He smiled through his words. 

Thorne didn't give up so easy. “But how could I have dared done so if I knew that meant going through the charming class president?”

Kai continued smiling as he leaned forward towards Thorne’s ear. He whispered, “ _Student council_ president.”

“Even better!” Their lips practically were bleeding honey by now. 

“Tell you what.” Kai was the shorter of the two, so he had to peer up to find Thorne's face, even though Thorne was slightly slouched in order to lean against the locker. “I will lead the student council meeting tonight in the assembly room, and you,” here he slid his hand out of Thorne's grasp and bopped his nose, “will have your band practice in the MPR.”

Thorne watched as his last hope walked away. 

 

The minute school ended, Thorne hightailed it from eight period math to the government classroom, where Mr. Konn’s final class was just leaving. After an awkward conversation with the band teacher during lunch, Thorne had been left with new resolve to convince Kai to change his mind. 

“Do you have my schedule memorized or something?”

Thorne laughed. “No, but I know Cinder and she mentioned that she had government eight period and you have government with her, so like the genius I am, I put two and two together.”

“If you were really a genius, I would think you would have realized I'm not going to change my mind.” Despite this, Kai leaned against the wall outside the doorway. Thorne planted a hand on the wall above his shoulder and leaned forward. 

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“And there's nothing I can do to change your mind?”

“Nope.” Out of the corner of his eye, Kai spotted his friend Cinder begin to come towards him before taking in the situation and wiggling her eyebrows. Kai rolled his eyes. 

“You know, I'm not above bartering.”

“Bartering?”

“Yeah, a trade. Your daddy's a politician, right, you know what that means.”

“Of course, but I'm not sure what you mean.”

“You give me the assembly room tonight.”

“And what do you give me?”

Thorne smiled, the smile that won hearts and broke them too. “Whatever you want, babe. Pick you up at six?”

Kai blinked, and Thorne could have sworn his eyes flickered down to his lips and back up. “Just take it.”

“What do you want in return?”

“Nothing. Just, just take it.” Kai walked away, head held high as always even as he shoved Thorne's shoulder on his way away. 

Thorne quickly replaced his grin with a frown. He wasn't sure what went wrong; normally this was the part where he adds the date they just set up into his calendar. Maybe he read the boy wrong. But he could have sworn the kid wasn't straight- he was a guy in student council after all.

Normally Thorne wouldn't really care. He was glad he got his band practice room, and glad Mr. Erland wasn't about to get mad at him. But honestly he was kind of sad Kai didn't take him up on his offer. It wasn't like he _liked_ Kai. No, of course he didn't _like_ Kai. 

But he didn't _not_ like Kai. 

So maybe he liked Kai a little more than he wanted to admit. And now he probably just ruined any chance he had at that. 

Great. 

 

Thorne walked into the band room, avoiding the student council kids that were dripping out. Before he could sit, however, he was ambushed by Cinder. 

“What the hell did you do to Kai?”

“I didn't do anything!”

“You said _something_ to him and I don't know what but now he's all mopey.”

“What? What'd I do?” Thorne frowned and thought back to their conversation. At first he had thought Kai was just annoyed by him, but maybe Thorne had actually done something to offend him. 

“I don't know! That's why I'm asking you, isn't it?”

“I don't know. I was asking if he’d mind moving his stuco meeting to the MPR so we could practice in here and he said no, so I asked again and then he said got annoyed and said sure.”

“How did you ask?”

Thorne but his lip. “Um, I guess I smiled at him, but I did that this morning too.” Then he remembered. “Oh! I sort of offered to go out with him or something in exchange.”

Cinder shoved him. “Idiot.”

“What?”

“He likes you, Thorne!”

“What? Wouldn't he be, like, not angry at me then?”

“Because you asked him out like it meant nothing?”

“It wasn't nothing! It could have been nothing, but I didn't mean it like it was nothing.”

“I don't understand.”

“You know, one of those ‘I’m joking, unless you're into it and then I'm 100% serious’ things.”

Cinder stared. “Okay, I'm done with you, brasshead. Maybe you should send your trumpet to talk things over Kai because clearly you can't do anything right yourself.”

“Cinder, wait!” But Thorne's cries were useless. Cinder moved over to the percussion section, leaving Thorne to mull over his problem. Now that Cinder put it out there like that, Thorne could see how Kia may have been offended. Sighing, he dumped his backpack and left the assembly room he had just fought for. 

Fortunately, Thorne knew exactly where Kai was going to be- the MPR. The multi-purpose room was smaller than the assembly room, and darker, making it the less preferable of the two for any activity. Still, Kai stood at the head of the table to lead the rest of stuco through brainstorming activities. 

Thorne leaned against the open doorway and watched as Kai had the room split into groups and delegated different tasks. He himself was about to walk over to the a girl Thorne recognized as Winter, the sophomore class president, and her friend Jacin. Before he could sit, he caught Thorne's eye from across the room. Kai tried to ignore him, but Thorne over-dramatically begged for a chance. He thought he had lost it, when he caught the attention of Winter. Once Kai realized that other people were about to be involved, he rolled his eyes and walked over to the doorway. 

“I'm leading a meeting.”

“I can see.” Thorne peered around the room, noting that Mr. Konn was watching them from his seat. He ignored his phone buzzing in his pocket. “It sounds like it's going well.”

“What do you want, Thorne?”

Thorne felt like he was pulled back to the end-of-the-day bell. “To apologize.”

“For not reserving the room in time? Forgiven. Are you done?”

“No, I-” he took a break to breathe. “I'm sorry for before. When I sort of asked you out.”

Kai had an odd expression. Maybe he honestly wasn't bothered by it. Maybe Thorne was just being annoying. Then he spoke, slow, “I remember.”

“That was … unnecessary of me. And rude. I didn't really think about it before, but I realize now that wasn't really fair to you and I'm sorry.”

“Thank you.” The normally wordy boy was now quiet. 

“Because,” Thorne continued, “it wouldn't have been no big deal. If you actually took me up on it.” He paused. “I would have liked it.”

Kai raised an eyebrow. 

This was sounding better in his head. “Because I like _you_.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. If you don't feel the same, that's fine, that's whatever, but I just wanted to let you know I didn't mean to offend you earlier it was just kind of habit and I didn't mean it the way it sounded like I meant it-”

“Thorne,” Kai cut him off. “What are you saying?”

“Well, first, thank you for moving your meeting.”

“And second?”

“Second,” Thorne swallowed, “would you consider going on a date? For real?”

He waited. Waited and hoped, with his high-strung high school heart, that he had been right about this one thing. 

“Okay.”

Thorne blinked. “Seriously?”

“Sure. Contrary to popular belief, I can decide to put myself into whichever social occasions I choose.”

“Just to be clear, a romantic-type date, right?”

Kai laughed. “I'm glad I found such a romantic-type guy. I'm expecting flowers for sure. And possibly a candelabra.”

“A candelabra? I was thinking maybe more like the light fixtures at Denny's.”

“Hmm, I'm really feeling the candelabra though. It might be a deal breaker.”

“Damn, you are one expensive date.” Thorne shook his head. “But really, I am sorry about earlier.”

“Thank you for apologizing.”

“Kai!”

Both spun their heads towards Konn, who had walked towards them. “Are you planning on rejoining the group?”

“Of course, Mr. Konn.” Kai smiled at Thorne one last time. “See you tomorrow? After school?”

“Yes, that sounds great!” Throne dodged a glare from the supervising teacher. He couldn't imagine Konn would be too happy about the stuco president fraternizing with the kid more likely to be sitting with his feet up on the desk than his school books. 

As Kai and Thorne drew away from each other, they couldn't help but smile at how things had miraculously work themselves out. With some help from Cinder, of course.


End file.
